Battleship

“Dammit,” muttered Hopper as he watched the seemingly random, unpredictable movements of the remaining target.

He was still having trouble processing that somehow Sam had managed to get in touch with him. He’d always known she was resourceful, but this was beyond anything he would have thought she could have cooked up. There had to be someone there with her, out on Saddle Ridge. Maybe someone military. He hoped so. It made him feel a little better knowing that perhaps there was an experienced soldier or Navy man by her side, working to get her the hell out of there…

I wonder who it is? Should I be jealous?

Then he pushed such dead-end thoughts out of his mind. This sure as hell wasn’t the time for them.

Nagata was right next to him, seeing the same thing that Hopper was when it came to the alien vessel. “They’re learning from their mistakes.”

Hopper nodded. “We can’t hit him. Can’t lock a missile on his movement.”

“They’re smart.”

“Yeah, well we’re not exactly a bunch of dummies ourselves. If nothing else, we bloodied them up pretty good, so that bought us some time. They’re not going to come right after us.”

“Too bad,” said Nagata. “Recklessness on their part could have worked in our favor.”

Hopper hated to admit it, but Nagata was right. Can’t be helped now, though. No sense dwelling on it. We need to focus on what’s next, not what was. “We know a few things,” said Hopper. He ticked them off on his fingers. “If you hit them, they come after you. They value their own. So if you kill them, they seem to resent that. Agree?”

“Agree,” said Nagata.

“We also know they don’t handle light very well, and their ships are not bulletproof. They are hittable.”

“Yes, agree.”

Hopper considered all of it a moment and then picked up the radio. “CIC to engineering. Beast, give me good news.”

“We’ve shored up the port engine,” Beast’s voice came back. That alone was enough to prompt a sigh of relief from Hopper. Beast continued, “I can give you 10 knots now and 20 in ten minutes.” Then Beast’s voice suddenly became fainter and Hopper realized Beast was facing away from the radio on his end, speaking to someone else softly, thinking his voice wasn’t being heard. He was saying, “Hiroki, can you give me twenty in ten?” A second later he came back on and said, “Yeah. Definitely twenty in ten.”

Hopper smiled at that, but he didn’t let his amusement sound in his voice as he said, “I’m holding you to that.”

He clicked off the radio and glanced at the monitor. The stinger was showing no sign of slowing its movements.

“I don’t think this one is going to make the same mistakes.”

“No,” said Nagata.

His gaze drifted to the island of Oahu. His mind racing, he said, “Let’s see if we can take him somewhere he doesn’t want to go, and hit him somewhere he doesn’t want to be hit.” He looked to Nagata for approval, but Nagata just appeared puzzled. This actually pleased Hopper—he was one step ahead of Nagata. This was shaping up to be a good day after all. “Miss Raikes.”

“Sir?”

“What time is sunrise?” He exchanged looks with Nagata, and this time it was clear that he was now on Hopper’s wavelength. Nagata didn’t smile—that would have been too much—but the edges of his mouth actually seemed to twitch ever so slightly.

Raikes, not sure why it was of that much relevance, checked her chronometer. “At 0553,” she said briskly.

“Okay.” He clicked back on the radio. “CIC to engineering. Beast, you said twenty minutes?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine. Meet me on the bridge in twenty-one minutes.”

“Aye, sir,” came Beast’s voice, but he sounded as confused as Raikes.

Moments later Hopper and Nagata were heading up to the bridge at a brisk pace. As they did so, Nagata startled Hopper by saying, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“You are all that your brother was and more. So why do you act as if you were so much less? Why such self- destructive behavior?”

He glanced at Nagata as they walked and then laughed softly. “Do you have any idea how many people have asked me that?”

“Not really, no.”

“It was rhetorical.” He paused and then said, as they continued to move, “When Stone and I were kids, I was better than he was at… well, lots of things. School. Athletics. Strategic thinking. Everything. And I loved rubbing it in his face, because I was a typically obnoxious kid brother. And one day we were in the woods near our house, playing some game… I don’t even remember what it was… and he just got fed up. He stalked off and I ran after him, shouting and being snide. Suddenly the ground went right out from under me and I fell straight down a hill, which sent me tumbling into a river. Got knocked cold by a branch and the water just started carrying me downstream. I’d’ve drowned, no question. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital. Stone had jumped in and swam after me and pulled me out. And what woke me up was my father shouting at Stone. Telling him it was all his fault. That it was his job to watch out for me. And I thought, Son of a bitch, he saved my stupid life and he’s the one getting his ass chewed. And that was it.”

Nagata looked at him, confused. “What was it? That was what?”

“I swore I would never do anything to make Stone look bad again. That he’d be the hero of the family. Because I might have been better at all this stuff that, in the end, doesn’t matter… but he was the better person. And he deserved to have the world recognize that.”

“That is… very noble of you.”

“Thanks.”

“But I would point out that it doesn’t explain your obvious rage issues. Your tendency to solve problems with your fists. Your knack for self-destructive behavior.”

“What are you getting at?” said Hopper suspiciously.

“Simply that, at some level, you hated the decision you made. That you likely resented your brother for that decision, even though you’re the one who made it. You’re suffering from misplaced aggression. You really wanted to lash out at your brother or your father, but since you didn’t dare, you lashed out at others… including me.”

“Yeah, well… you had it coming.”

“Fortunately, you hit like a girl.”

Hopper stopped in his tracks and stared at Nagata, who simply stood there with one eyebrow raised.

Then Hopper laughed. Nagata’s face never moved a muscle.

Hopper started walking again, Nagata falling in step behind him. “Whatever, man. Hell, the only reason I told you any of this was because we’ll probably both be dead by noon anyway.”

“That’s very comforting.”

“‘Rage issues.’ ‘Misplaced aggression.’ Jeez. What were you, a psychiatrist before you joined the Navy?”

“No. But my mother’s one.”

“She is?”

“Don’t get me started on my mother,” said Nagata.

Hopper didn’t.

Once on the bridge, Hopper spread out navigation charts on the wide table and started tracing a line from their present location toward the island that was the target of his developing strategy. Nagata stood to one side of the table, Beast on the other.

“When we round this point can you hold her here tight? Just off Diamond Head?” Hopper said to Beast.

Beast studied it and was obviously running calculations through his head. “It ain’t gonna be easy. There’s an ass crack of a current in there. We get on its bad side, we’re gonna need a proctologist to pull us out.”